Early Commercial Shipping

Shortly after his arrival in 1880, Henry Starke began building a bridge pier at the end of Lake Street to ship wood products from Arcadia. The pier eventually extended 1000 feet into Lake Michigan. Unfortunately, the pier was exposed to Lake Michigan's moods, and the natural channel at the north end of Bar Lake was shallow and often filled with sand.

So in 1893, Starke built a new channel at the south end of Lake Arcadia. The channel provided reliable access to Arcadia's safe harbor. This opened up Arcadia to regular passenger and freight service by ship.

Shipping in the Arcadia AreaThe exhibit photos and artifacts about commercial shipping in the Arcadia area. This exhibit includes models of two ships of note in Arcadia's history: the steamship Arcadia and the schooner Minnehaha; a recently discovered photo of the Minnehaha; a fishing net needle; shipwrecks near Arcadia; a document intended to pull it all together.